All The Faith In The World

Chapter 16: The New Girl

Faith's P.O.V

Hayden and I left class and I searched for Kaycie with my eyes.

"What are you looking for? Oh, is it that girl? I'm telling you I don't trust her," Hayden says, trying to guide me to the cafeteria.

"Why don't you trust her? What's wrong with her?" I asked. He thought it about it for a second.

"I don't know, but she just doesn't seem like she is who she says she is. You know?" When Hayden asked if I knew in the past, I would normally say yes I do know. I get him more than anyone else on this planet. But, today felt different. I really liked Kaycie. And I can't see why he doesn't.

"No, Hayden, I don't know. She seems perfectly fine to me, I don't get why you don't like her." I said.

"I'm just trying to protect you from getting hurt. She seems like a fake friend. Like Amelia was."

I knew what he meant now. Before I met Hayden, Amelia was my best school friend. Until, when I met Hayden, and we didn't include her in the project, we had this big fight. Now, she is one of Angela's minions. I stopped searching and looked at him.

"Hayden, you don't need to be worried about anything. I can hold my own, remember?" He looked down at my broken wrist and injured knees. He nodded his head and pulled me into the cafeteria. I still looked for any sign of Kaycie, but she was no where to be found. I do see a familiar face walking toward Hayden and I from the other side of the gym.

"Faith?" Grayson asked.

"Grayson! I haven't seen you in forever! Hey!" I said.

"I'm going to go get a seat, I'll see you in a minute." Hayden said as he walked toward our regular table.

"Who was that?" Grayson asked.

"Oh, that's my best friend, Hayden." I said. "So, how have you been?"

"I've been fine, I saw your story on the news. How are you doing with it?" He put his hands in his pockets like he was nervous to talk to me. He was so cute when he was nervous. I looked down at the ground.

"I mean, I'm fine, now. It was hard the first couple of days, I just could not stop crying. But, after that, it slowly got better," I said.

"That's great, I've seen people never bounce back from something like that." He said.

"Yeah, like this one time when I was 10 I sprained my ankle and a week later, I was back to dancing." I said.

"I don't mean physically, I mean mentally. Like when you're in a car accident. You aren't perfectly stable at first, or maybe ever again." His blue eyes filled with sadness, like he had been there himself once. I wanted to know more about it, but I didn't want to push further and make him feel uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I get what you mean." I looked into his eyes, trying to make him feel better.

"Well, I should get back to my table. I hope I can see you again soon." he said. I blushed and looked to the shiny, wooden floor.

"Me too. So I will see you around?" I asked, hopefully.

"Yes, totally." He smiled at me and walked away. I went over to our table.

"Okay, hold on. Who is he, and why have you never mentioned him?" Hayden asks when I first walk over.

"His name is Grayson and we met when I was walking home from dance a while ago. He's no one. Don't worry about it," I said, even though I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. Hayden gave me a look that said, oh right. Like I believe that. I know you're totally in love with him. Then, he went back to eating his bag of potato chips.

"Faith!" I hear a girl call out behind me. I turn around to see Kaycie with a lunch tray in her hands. I wave to her and invite her to sit with us.

"Don't say I didn't warn ya," Hayden whispers in my ear as she comes to sit next to me.

"Hey, I looked for you when we got out of class, where were you?" she asks.

"I tried looking for you too. I guess I just got lost in the sea of people." I say.

"Oh. It's okay." she says. Okay?

"Oh, Faith, I just remembered. We have a big Spanish final on Monday, do you want to come over this weekend and study?" Hayden asks.

"Yeah, sure. Sleepover?" I ask.

"You're allowed to sleepover at a boy's house?" Kaycie asks me with wide eyes.

"Umm, yeah. What's the big deal? We're best friends," I say.

"Well, my parents won't let me sleepover at a boys house, ever." she says, accenting the 'ever'. I have never thought about that before.The fact that I'm allowed to sleep at a boy's house. I mean, yeah, it's just Hayden, but now it seemed different. The rest of lunch was pretty quiet. No one said anything about the sleepover or basically much of anything else.

I'm out waiting for Connor at the corner, talking to Kaycie, when Noah meets comes over to join us.

"Hey, Faith. Connor here yet?" Noah asked, looking at his watch.

"No. He's probably just running late." I say. I look back at Kaycie, who is blushing and staring at Noah. "Oh, Noah, this is Kaycie. Kaycie, this is my brother, Noah."

"Hello Kaycie. Did she see the news story?" Noah asks, putting out his hand for her to shake.

"Yeah. Everyone did." I said, looking down at the worn out cement splotched with various gum spots. Noah gets pretty quiet after that. I think he got some comments about the story as well. Just then, Connor pulls in the parking lot and comes to the curb to pick us up.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Kaycie." I say.

"Okay! Bye, Faith!" She is still blushing from shaking hands with Noah. I climb into the truck and put my crutches next to me on the seat.

"Well, she seemed nice." Noah said as he buckled himself into the seat. I nodded my head and looked out the window to see where she went.

The drive home was silent and slow. We got stuck in traffic due to a car crash up ahead. I just watched as ambulance after ambulance go to the wrecked silver car in the middle of the road.

When I was younger, I used to make up stories for the people in the wrecks. The story I was most proud of was when a middle aged women with 2 twin girls was driving home from her job as a genetics counselor when a semi truck nailed her from the side. She was transported to the nearest hospital and had 2 surgeries to fix her arm and leg. Then, she lived to see her daughters make it through high school and college. A happy ending, as usual. I liked happy endings as a child. It made the story better, in my opinion. When I was about 5, I decided I wanted to be an author. So, I started writing little books and making covers for the books. I went the whole 9 yards. Then, dance came along and I decided to put that aside for a little while. I always wanted to get back into writing, but I have just never found the time.